


The Ocean Inside Us

by gyunikum



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Angst, Dark, M/M, Mild Gore, Non-Graphic Violence, merman au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 16:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10469529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyunikum/pseuds/gyunikum
Summary: Hakyeon has been researching the mer all his life, but when one night a male mer climbs out to the beach, everything changes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> wrote it in a week
> 
> edit: also listened to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_FIwLoIHBY) while writing

The sky is overcast, heavy grey clouds hanging low as if they wanted to dip their feet into the rippling ocean; the image of them reflects the quiet storm inside Hakyeon that thunders into existence in his chest as soon as his eyes and brain register the sight opening up to him.

He comes to a halt some meters from the heap of slimy mass lying on the dark sand, and watches as Sanghyuk examines the motionless body from a safe distance.

“Is it alive?” Hakyeon asks when Sanghyuk looks up. Sanghyuk shakes his head, looking more upset and forlorn than anything.

Hakyeon wishes Sanghyuk would get used to it as fast as he has, but Sanghyuk has always had more empathy for any sentient living being than Hakyeon— it’s not that he doesn’t care, but when one meets death caused by the immoral activities of humanity on a daily basis, it doesn’t take long to grow almost immune to it. Sanghyuk has a long way to get where Hakyeon is.

Still, Hakyeon knows he shouldn’t distance his feelings from his occupation so much, but it’s hard enough as it is not to feel sad when the thing that has given his life meaning is coming apart at the seams, and there is nothing Hakyeon can do to prevent its demise.

“This is the third beaching this week,” Sanghyuk says, sighing as he walks up to Hakyeon.

Hakyeon exhales, and lifts the walkie-talkie to his mouth to call for the cleaning staff and have the body transferred to the laboratory. Instead of looking at the dried out body in front of him, he turns his gaze towards the storm brewing in the distance over the water’s surface.

 

“Why would they do this?” Sanghyuk wonders, stepping around the operating table. The laboratory’s sterile lights flicker for a moment as the tempest outside rages above the underground structure.

“Their behavior changed drastically over the past few years,” Hakyeon agrees as he prepares for the examination. He arranges the tools he would need on a tray and brings it over to the table in the middle where Sanghyuk is already waiting for him.

“Do you think it’s our fault too?” Sanghyuk asks. He stares at the body.

“That the mer choose to end their lives in such an excruciating way?” Hakyeon mumbles, placing both his hands on the table. He glances at Sanghyuk. “It’s always our fault.”

He looks at the mer’s body, male, with stringy muscles, the pale skin of those residing in the depths of the ocean turning sticky and wrinkly already— but who knows how long the body has been drying out on the beach before the coast guard stumbled upon it and notified the laboratory.

Hakyeon places his hands on each side of the head of the mer, and fixes its position— the mer’s humanoid features aren’t so much different than of a human’s, except for a few differences, like the membrane under their eyelids that protect their eyes, or the structure of their outer ear shells. The most notable difference, though, is the complete lack of nose— instead, the mer have simple nares to smell their prey. This one, though, has a rather large bump on which the holes sit on.

Hakyeon feels along the mer’s neck with his hands, sliding them over the creature’s shoulders and chest, the anatomy of their torso so similar to humans’. On his sides, below his ribs, Hakyeon presses his fingers into the long slits of the mer’s gills, and some kind of black liquid oozes out of the openings, dripping onto the table. Slithering, like a snake of causa mortis.

“The same as the others,” Hakyeon concludes, bringing his fingers to his nose, and sniffs. “Oil. Take some samples just in case.”

Sanghyuk complies diligently, filling a vial with the black substance while Hakyeon turns away towards a computer screen in the corner that displays a live video feed of what they are doing in the room, recording them. He sits down at the desk and faces the camera.

“The lungs of the specimen found in the morning, beached on the coast of the island, is filled with liquid petroleum hydrocarbon. There hasn’t been any oil spills in the area since the early 2000’s, which raises concern whether there has been one recently without our knowing, or if we are dealing with a mass migration of mer— both could have disastrous effects on the marine environment if they are not stopped,” Hakyeon explains, trying not to sound too emotional. When Sanghyuk steps behind him, holding up the vial of black petroleum for the camera before he places it on a rack, Hakyeon continues. “We will proceed with a more in-depth analysis of the mer’s condition.”

“Do you want me to do it?” Sanghyuk offers as they return to the table. The white, almost translucent skin of the mer’s sides are stained black, as well as his face, two lines spilling out of his nares.

“No, I need a clean cut on this one,” Hakyeon rejects, and takes the saw from Sanghyuk’s hands.

The whirring of the equipment is soon taken over by the sounds of the mer’s sternum breaking, and when Hakyeon is done, he motions for Sanghyuk to take his glasses off, black splattered all over it. It’s never a tidy job when it comes to studying the mer— especially if all their insides are drenched in oil.

Sanghyuk lets out a retching sound as the smell hits their noses even through the face mask— rotting organs mixed with the decay caused by the petroleum. The mer’s insides are almost pitch black, stained by the oil, and Hakyeon looks at the sight in front of him with horror, legs rooted into the ground.

“Record this,” Hakyeon orders, coughing. While Sanghyuk heaves a few, trying not to vomit before he can fetch the camera, Hakyeon opens the mer’s mouth with his hands, and sticks two of his fingers down the creature’s throat, mindful of the rather sharp teeth.

Just when Sanghyuk arrives with the small camera within his grasp, Hakyeon manages to dislocate the black clog inside the mer’s throat. He turns the head to the side, and more liquid pours out of the mer’s mouth.

“He literally drowned in oil,” Hakyeon swallows. “Just where did you swim to die like this?” he mumbles, staring at the mer’s unnaturally peaceful face. For a moment, he wishes he could tap into the mer’s brain and see his memories— what had happened before the oil killed him?

Sanghyuk keeps quiet for a few minutes as he records Hakyeon prodding around the mer’s open chest until he notices something, and brings Hakyeon’s attention to it.

“He’s fisting one of his hands.”

“Let me see.” Hakyeon walks around the table to Sanghyuk’s side, and begins to wrench the mer’s balled fist open, one finger at a time.

A small shell clatters on the floor.

 

“I can’t stop thinking…” Sanghyuk speaks up. They spent most of the day in the laboratory, dissecting the mer to learn more about them, and only just returned an hour or so ago.

“About what?” Hakyeon asks softly, nudging the top of Sanghyuk’s head resting on his shoulder with his nose. Their mugs of hot tea are steaming on the coffee table as the storm continues to rage into the dark evening outside.

“What if it was a human? People don’t care about the mer because they don’t know about their existence, but—” he cuts himself off, threading his fingers through Hakyeon’s open palm on their laps. The wind outside howls, but inside their lodging, it’s quiet, with only the television as a background noise, almost suffocating. “What if humans were dying because of the oil spills?”

“Nothing would change,” Hakyeon whispers after a moment of hesitation. As soon as the words leave his mouth, he regrets his decision to stick to the truth. “People don’t care if it doesn’t affect them directly.”

“If the mer go extinct, the ocean’s ecosystem will collapse,” Sanghyuk counters weakly, and Hakyeon nods, understanding.

“We need to learn more about the mer to make sure people will believe us.”

“I feel like we’re running out of time,” Sanghyuk sighs. Hakyeon hums, nuzzling into Sanghyuk’s hair.

They watch the TV quietly, not really paying attention to the international news channel – they don’t have much to choose from – as they focus on each other’s presence. For a fleeting moment, Hakyeon feels hypersensitive, the way Sanghyuk softly strokes Hakyeon’s knuckles with the pad of his thumb burning his skin. It ignites something within Hakyeon’s chest and stomach, something that has him tip his head down and whisper into Sanghyuk’s ear.

“Let’s not focus on the bad things,” he mumbles, releasing Sanghyuk’s hand to make his way up Sanghyuk’s arm with his fingers, until his jaw. He turns his head, tipping Sanghyuk’s chin with the pad of his index finger, and hovers his lips before Sanghyuk’s for a moment, waiting patiently. Sanghyuk leans forward, closing the distance, licking into Hakyeon’s mouth, desperate for the physical comfort of Hakyeon’s love.

Sanghyuk kisses him hungrily, climbing into his lap, and Hakyeon soon forgets the dead mer, chest stitched together, lying in the cold basement of their laboratory, a dire reminder, as if it was an omen for a dark future Hakyeon wants to forget for a few hours before jumping head first back into his reality.

He grasps Sanghyuk’s waist, sliding his hands down the boy’s ass and grabbing a handful of the soft flesh. Sanghyuk grinds against his crotch, erection beginning to come to life, and Hakyeon leads the way as he breaks the kiss and pushes Sanghyuk up so he can lay down on the couch. He extends an arm towards Sanghyuk, and pulls him back into another kiss as one of Sanghyuk’s hands slide into Hakyeon’s underwear, wrapping his fingers around his soft cock to jerk him into an erection.

Soon, Hakyeon’s deep moans reverberate between the four walls of their living room, TV quiet, and the storm outside as if it was muted. Sanghyuk, his cock cold and wet from the lube, keeps his pace slow and deep until Hakyeon shifts, urging Sanghyuk to pick up the pace with a whine. They hold onto each other, Hakyeon embracing Sanghyuk’s shoulders as they fuck, only the thought of reaching their climax mattering to them at the moment.

Sanghyuk comes fast, with a loud, throaty gasp, snapping his waist with such vigor that if Hakyeon could think straight, it would make him feel somewhat old, even though they are only ten years apart. Hakyeon breathes hard, hand jerking himself off while Sanghyuk rides out his orgasm, hitting Hakyeon’s prostrate with each thrust. All Hakyeon can think of is the moment as he shoots his load onto his stomach, moaning Sanghyuk’s name.

 

The storm has calmed down, but the rain is still going strong when Hakyeon walks out to the sheltered alcove of their veranda that faces the beach. He lights a cigarette pinched between his lips, and sits down on the slightly wet chair, pulling the robe closer around his shoulders. He glances back inside the living room through the glass door— Sanghyuk is fast asleep on the couch, his large, naked frame curled up underneath a thin blanket Hakyeon has covered him with before coming outside.

Hakyeon takes a long drag, waits, and then exhales the smoke as he listens to the waves crashing onto the beach and the pitter-patter of the rain. It’s not completely quiet, but peaceful all the same— it fills Hakyeon with serenity and clears his mind that is being ravaged by a storm of conflicting thoughts.

He never meant to fall in love with Sanghyuk. He wonders if it’s love he feels when he glances upon Sanghyuk, or if their connection is more about being convenient to each other. Ever since he was a kid, Hakyeon had known about the mer thanks to his mother’s job that now Hakyeon is continuing, still within a very tight circle. As a kid, and even as an adult, Hakyeon wasn’t allowed to talk about the mer’s existence— after he’d taken over his mother’s research, he’d met her colleagues from around the world, but until he was introduced to Sanghyuk, Hakyeon has always been alone, working alone, living alone.

Hakyeon’s life has always revolved around the mer, and to be able to finally share it with someone— it was uplifting. He felt so free whenever he could talk about his research with Sanghyuk without restrictions— it was cherry on top that Sanghyuk shared both his excitement and worries about the mer. Hakyeon didn’t need more in another human.

Maybe they were supposed to fall in love, but Hakyeon never really paid a closer mind to it. Everything that Sanghyuk offers him— the bodily pleasures of sex, the emotional support, and his insight and help in their research are all convenient to Hakyeon, and he’s not complaining.

Yet he can’t shake off the feeling that something bad is going to happen— he just doesn’t know in which aspect of his life.

Hakyeon fills his lungs with the smoke until his chest feels bursting, trying to get rid of his thoughts. Just a few seconds after he exhales, his ears pick up a faint wail under the soft sound of the rain. He cranes his neck, standing up to lean over the railing into the rain, but the sound of the waves overwhelm the wailing.

It sounds like a mix between the high-pitched wail of a whale and a human’s cry before it suddenly chokes out of existence.

Hakyeon holds his breath as he listens, and the next time he hears it, he’s already halfway through the door, running up to the couch to shake Sanghyuk awake with a shout. Next, he hurries into the kitchen, opening a few drawers until he finds a flashlight.

“What’s going on?” Sanghyuk groans, rubbing his eyes as he tries to push himself up. Hakyeon stops before the balcony door, and directs the led beam of the torch straight into the boy’s face.

“Get yourself a flashlight and follow me to the beach. Something is there.”

 

The only time Hakyeon has seen a living mer, his mother was still alive, and he was already her assistant. The mer had been beached, and it was dying when Hakyeon stumbled upon it while on his break. After he overcame the shock of seeing a moving, breathing mer, its tail flapping against the ground helplessly, he called for his mother, and knelt down beside the creature.

He stared deep into the mer’s slit eyes, and slowly, he reached out for its hand. The mer began to calm down, rapidly rising chest slowing down, and the mer stopped gasping in the dry air. Its tail, covered in a mixture of brilliant emerald and azure scales that reflected the Sun’s summer brightness, stopped flapping.

By the time Hakyeon’s mother arrived, the mer was already dead, and Hakyeon— shaken yet fascinated. The meeting finally made him decide to devote his life to the research of mer without his mother’s influence— up until that moment, all he’d been doing was following the path his mother had intended for him, and though he’d always had the illusion to quit and pursue something else, his life was predetermined for him.

The event of seeing a mer die before his eyes helped Hakyeon grow up to his task.

 

This time, the mer – male, larger than Sanghyuk even, the largest specimen Hakyeon has seen – is very much alive, bursting with above-human strength, as it crawls along the shoreline in the rain. Both his eyes and his scales reflect the torch’s light, and that’s how Hakyeon notices it in the first place.

Hakyeon comes to a halt when the mer opens his mouth and lets out a blood-churning cry as he drags his body with two strong arms, gyrating his tail to the sides not unlike a snake’s movement.

“Hey,” Hakyeon says, loud enough for his voice to be heard over the crashing waves, but soft not to scare the mer. “Are you hurt?”

He knows the mer doesn’t understand him— they barely know anything about how the mer communicate, but he hopes that his voice and his intonation will have a calming effect on the sea creature.

The mer freezes in his tracks and stares at Hakyeon, as if panicking. Most of his face is covered with wet streaks of his long black hair, and his chest and arms are caked with mud and sand as he has dragged himself on the beach for who knows how long.

“Hakyeon!” Sanghyuk yells in the distance, and the mer startles. The reaction is so humanoid, so brimming with personality, that for a moment, Hakyeon sees a person with a tail of a fish looking up at him, not a mer.

“It’s okay,” Hakyeon whispers, slowly crouching down. He extends his arm towards the mer, not breaking the eye contact. “It’s okay,” he echoes.

The mer lifts his arm as if reaching for Hakyeon before he collapses.

 

Sanghyuk drapes a dry towel around Hakyeon’s shoulders, rubbing at his skin warmly as they stare at the mer resting in their bath tub full of salt water from the beach. Hakyeon shifts in the chair, slipping his hands off the edge of the tub.

“Will he not dry out like this?” Sanghyuk asks quietly, resting his hands on Hakyeon’s shoulders.

“No. Not for time being,” Hakyeon mumbles, pressing his lips against Sanghyuk’s knuckles. “They can, uh, self-lubricate— for the lack of better word— to protect their skin as long as they are in contact with sea water.”

“So they still wouldn’t be able to last on the surface for too long,” Sanghyuk concludes with a hum.

“We’ll put him in the tank in the morning when we’ll have more manpower,” Hakyeon says. “We should notify the others then, too.”

“Alright,” Sanghyuk nods, and leans down to press a chaste kiss to Hakyeon’s lips. “Are you coming to bed?”

“I’ll go in a bit,” Hakyeon whispers into Sanghyuk’s mouth, his mind completely focused on the creature next to him in the tub. “Warm up the bed for me, will you?”

Sanghyuk strokes the back of his head, kisses him deeper, and releases his lips only when they are both short on oxygen. Hakyeon stares after Sanghyuk, confused, but shrugs when the bathroom door closes.

He turns back towards the mer, and examines his physical assets.

The mer’s skin is even whiter than that of the beached one, and on the inside of his arms, Hakyeon can see the cobwebs of dark blue veins carrying red blood. His scales are an interesting combination of dark green, orange and burgundy with a strange pattern that seems familiar to Hakyeon, but he can’t put his finger on what it reminds him of at the moment.

He’s mesmerized by the sight— he never thought he would be able to see a living mer from such a close proximity, and he has restrain himself from reaching out and touching the creature. He can’t, though, no matter how much he wants to feel that slimy skin under his hands— he doesn’t want to contaminate the mer with bacteria living on his palm, even if he disinfected. He only knows most through his mother’s research.

The mer shifts a bit, and water sloshes out, making Hakyeon push himself back along with the chair. He could sit there and stare at the mer all night long, if he could.

He brings his eyes up the body of the mer, taking note of the defined chest muscles, until he notices a chain tight around the mer’s thick neck.

Hakyeon digs into the cupboard below the sink and pulls out an unopened pair of plastic gloves. He carefully reaches over and hooks his fingers into the ball chain, tugging at it softly not to hurt the mer. After a bit of struggle, he manages to free it, and pulls the chain towards himself. A simple rectangular metal tag with oval ends dangles off it— Hakyeon leans close to see the letters punched into the material of the dog-tag.

_South Korean Marines. 4800120524. Jung Taekwoon. AB+_

“What is this?” Hakyeon murmurs, turning the tag around, wondering how a mer got a hold of such an object. On the other side of the tag, he sees a crudely carved shape that looks almost exactly like the larger pattern on the mer’s tail around. “Is this you? Are you Taekwoon?”

The mer, however, continues to sleep, and before Hakyeon can stop himself, he gently reaches out and sweeps a wisp of black hair out of the mer’s face to see it better.

 

Hakyeon doesn’t remember if he’s fallen asleep at all once he climbed into bed next to a softly snoring Sanghyuk, but they are both startled awake by loud clattering and the mer’s distinct, sorrowful wailing.

“He’s not in the bathroom,” Sanghyuk informs as soon as he returns to the living room, having left to check where the mer was supposed to be.

“He couldn’t have left the house,” Hakyeon says, and then realization strikes him. “The basement.”

They both hurry down the hallway, and indeed, the door to the staircase leading down to the underground laboratory is open, the beige carpet dark and wet where the mer has crawled his way out of the bathroom from the other side of the apartment.

The mer’s wails increase in volume as they reach the bottom of the stairs, but before Sanghyuk can rush into the laboratory, Hakyeon grabs his wrist, and presses his index finger to his lips.

“Let’s not scare him,” he whispers, and Sanghyuk nods. They quietly round the open door, and peek into the room to assess the situation.

Hakyeon doesn’t know what he was expecting of the sight to unfurl in front of him, but it was definitely not seeing Taekwoon on the floor, hugging the dead mer tightly against his chest as he wails, hands skittering and roaming across the mer’s body.

Sanghyuk looks at Hakyeon in confusion, but he misses just by an inch as he makes an attempt to hold Hakyeon back.

Hakyeon enters the laboratory carefully, almost tip-toeing his way towards the mess in the middle – he has no idea how Taekwoon managed to reach all the way up to the table and pull the dead body off – and slowly kneels down next to the two mer, a meter distance between them just to be sure.

“He’s dead,” Hakyeon whispers. Taekwoon lets out small whimpers, not looking at Hakyeon, nor does he react in any way that would tell Hakyeon he understands. “I’m sorry— we couldn’t help him in time.”

He turns back towards the door and holds his hand up to stop Sanghyuk from entering— the boy blinks at him, but obliges, watching the scene intently. He looks ready to jump between Hakyeon and Taekwoon should the mer attack.

Instead, Taekwoon opens his mouth.

“I know,” he says, and he shouldn’t be able to, but he does, with an alien accent, and his voice is shrill, somewhat hissing, but Hakyeon understands him just enough, even with his unnatural intonation, unnatural to Hakyeon’s ears— no human speaks like this, but it’s understandable.

Taekwoon is no human.

“You speak our language?” Hakyeon blurts out, eyes widening. He has to brace his palms on the floor not to fall forward in his surprise.

Taekwoon lets out a humming sound, almost as if it was a melody, a part of a beautiful song, placing his hand on the dead mer’s chest. “Sick. Black thing. He… left. I. Not know. I follow. I not find.” He hums the same tone again. “Dead.”

A tear trickles down Taekwoon’s glistening face.

“I’m sorry,” Hakyeon whispers, eyes cast to the ground. “I’m so sorry he had to die like this— alone, hopeless.”

“Bury. Need to bury. In color—ful garden,” Taekwoon mumbles, resting his head on top of the other mer’s.

“We will bury him, if it’s a place we can reach underwater,” Hakyeon promises with a nod. “Taekwoon. Is that your name?” He asks, pointing at the dog-tag resting on Taekwoon’s chest. The mer blinks at Hakyeon, drawing his sparse eyebrows together in an expression that reminds Hakyeon of confusion.

“No. Name— name is—” he closes his mouth and hums again, in a different pitch than the other time, it’s a bit lower. “But—” he hums again, the same as before when he referred to the other mer, “calls for me, this—” again he hums, a different, but just as beautiful a lilting tone. Taekwoon smiles to himself.

He sings the mer’s name.

They sing— the mer communicate by singing.

“I’ll… I’ll call you Taekwoon, alright?” Hakyeon asks, and continues when Taekwoon glances at him. “Who was he? Taekwoon? Have you met other humans? On the surface?” He knows he shouldn’t bombard the mer with so many questions, he knows he should let Taekwoon mourn his fellow mer, but—

Nobody has ever communicated with the mer before— Hakyeon is the first to actually talk with one since the discovery of the species decades ago.

Adrenaline rushes through him at the thought of just how game-changing this night is.

The mere foundation of everything humanity knows is shaking at the base.

“A man. Good man. Lost man. Save me,” Taekwoon says, and unwraps one of his arms to point at the scar on his neck that Hakyeon hasn’t noticed. It’s an ugly, messy cut, made with something jagged, healed with a white pucker. “He teach me human talk.”

“Psst,” Sanghyuk hisses from the door. “Hakyeon!” he whisper-shouts, motioning for Hakyeon. He waves a phone in the air which prompts Hakyeon to leave Taekwoon without a word and snatch the device out of Sanghyuk’s hand with a sharp glare that confuses Sanghyuk.

“Yes?” Hakyeon whispers into the receiver, exiting the laboratory. He mouths at Sanghyuk to keep an eye on Taekwoon.

_“Sanghyuk just told us what happened. Is it true? Is a living mer in your laboratory right now?”_

Hakyeon hesitates. “Yes, indeed. We found him on the beach this night. The rain must have kept him wet enough for him to stay on the surface for so long.”

_“Sanghyuk mentioned that the mer could understand you, and could form basic sentences in Korean.”_

“That is right too.”

_“How do you think that is possible?”_

“I’m not sure yet, but T— this mer could have been around since the Second World War. He has the dog-tag of a member of the South Korean marine in his possession— the mer and the soldier must have crossed paths at some point.”

_“Fascinating. This is sensational. We will send the proper equipment to transfer him to our research center in Japan immediately—”_

“Transfer him?” Hakyeon blurts out, quickly rearranging his tone to sound neutral. “No— I think it’s best that I run some basic tests on him here, and then we’ll see if he can be transferred to— wherever.”

The other side is quiet.

“Hello?” he asks quietly, stomach squeezing with sick anticipation. The calm before the storm.

 _“Expect the equipment to arrive tomorrow.”_ The line goes dead.

Hakyeon throws the phone against the wall, and after a delirious moment, dashes into the laboratory.

“Sanghyuk,” he calls out. “Get the boat and the freezer ready. We’re leaving.”

 

“Are you crazy?” Sanghyuk yells. The wooden walls of the boathouse swallow his hysteria. “I thought you wanted this?”

Hakyeon comes to a sudden halt in his mad dash of preparation. The boat is ready to sail out, but he needs to pack the most important equipment and supplies— he doesn’t know how long this will last.

“What?” Hakyeon asks, tone so low as if threatening. Sanghyuk doesn’t notice it. He steps closer to Hakyeon.

“This— this whole thing? You’ve been researching the mer all your life and now that you have the opportunity to learn everything about them, you toss it away?” Sanghyuk asks in disbelief, voice hitching up in such a raw confusion that forces Hakyeon to take a deep breath and calm himself down.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Hakyeon shakes his head, and goes back to checking the contents of the cooling box. Sanghyuk lets out an angry sound to hide his confusion. Hakyeon huffs and straightens out to look Sanghyuk in the eye. “I’m researching the mer because I want to protect them from humans.”

“But—” Sanghyuk starts. “The people we work for—? What happened to our goal of introducing the mer to humans in peace?”

“They will exploit the mer, like we exploit everything on this planet. Humans will not be ready to accept the mer as equals so long we fight among ourselves over skin color or religions,” he trails off. “You are the first step on a long journey towards a peaceful relationship between humans and the mer.”

“Me?” Sanghyuk asks, taken aback.

“You have so much compassion to offer, Sanghyuk,” Hakyeon says softly, stepping up to Sanghyuk. He hesitates for a fragment of a moment before lifting his hand to place it on Sanghyuk’s cheek. “You have to teach the world how to be this compassionate, not just among ourselves, but across different species.” Quieter, he adds, “Even when I’m gone.”

“Please, don’t go. We’ll figure something out,” Sanghyuk begs, grabbing Hakyeon’s arm.

Below them, water splashes, and Taekwoon resurfaces, holding onto the side of the platform to pull himself up. He picks at the GPS device on his wrist clumsily before he lets out a whine directed at Hakyeon.

“We’ll leave soon,” Hakyeon tells Taekwoon and turns back to Sanghyuk, catching a dark look flash across Sanghyuk’s features as he glares at the mer before he looks at Hakyeon.

“I have to do this— I can’t let them experiment on him,” Hakyeon says quietly. It’s not that he doesn’t want Taekwoon to hear what he says because chances are the mer can’t understand most of their words, but more because he can’t bring himself to speak louder.

He feels so, so tired.

“There has to be another way… you don’t have to risk your life—”

“There is no other way— we don’t have enough time,” Hakyeon shakes his head, waits a beat, and then steps closer and places both his hands on Sanghyuk’s cheeks. He looks up at Sanghyuk. “I need you to trust me.”

“I trust you,” Sanghyuk whispers, closing his eyes. A tear slips down his face. His nose is ruddy, and his lower lip trembles. “Please don’t go.”

“Do this for me, Sanghyuk.” Hakyeon touches his forehead to Sanghyuk’s. “I’ll try to come back, but I can’t promise anything— if I don’t return—”

“Please don’t,” Sanghyuk echoes, his voice barely audible.

The sound of the water lapping at the sides of the boathouse comes crashing down on them as if a thunder.

“If I don’t come back,” Hakyeon starts again, “all my research is available to you— continue where I left off. Don’t search for me— people need you more than me. The mer needs you more.”

“You can’t ask this from me,” Sanghyuk says in disbelief.

“Please,” Hakyeon pleads. “You have to do this for me.” He gently strokes Sanghyuk’s cheeks. The dawn breeze, salty as the ocean, blows past their lips, but Hakyeon can feel Sanghyuk’s hot breath on his face.

“You can’t leave me— I can’t even make a clean cut yet…” Sanghyuk trails off, earning a soft chuckle from Hakyeon.

“You will learn.”

They stay like that for a few beats before Hakyeon speaks up again.

“Thank you for loving me, Sanghyuk,” he whispers, lips hovering over Sanghyuk’s.

Sanghyuk lets out a sob, and kisses back, needy and desperate as if he wanted to show Hakyeon what he was going to leave behind if he steps on that boat. But Hakyeon made up his mind already, and he knows he wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt of letting his employers get their hands on Taekwoon and who knows how many more mer in the future.

 

He has to go radio silent so that he will not be tracked by his signal— it also means that he can’t radio anyone in case something happens, which makes Hakyeon’s mission tenfold more dangerous, let alone the fact that he is out there, alone, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a boat that wasn’t exactly built for some of the more violent storms. He isn’t the best at navigation or captaining a ship either – they usually had a licensed captain from the island take them out to the open water whenever they had to go on a field research – and Hakyeon’s only safety is the little red dot on the map signaling Taekwoon’s location, leading Hakyeon towards where the other mer, frozen to keep it from decomposing, is to be buried as per mer customs.

He didn’t really think about the possibilities until he set out, but Hakyeon reasons, he just didn’t have the time to consider every outcome. Chances are, he isn’t going to come back, and even though he’s not exactly ready to die yet, he knows he has to do this— he has to help Taekwoon get away.

Alone on the boat with nobody to talk to, his mind wanders long and far as the sun makes its way across the azure sky. He thinks back to Sanghyuk, and the years they’ve spent together, first as colleagues— Sanghyuk would have been a prodigy in his own field if he hadn’t been expelled from his university for the usage of illegal substances – he’d never been an addict, but the academy didn’t want a student with a record. Somehow he ended up in the crosshairs of Hakyeon’s employers, and Sanghyuk was given an opportunity to join their top secret research or continue with his way of life and waste his talents. Sanghyuk had agreed, mainly for the money offered to him, and soon Hakyeon met him at one of the organization’s research center in Sydney. For the beginning until they were transferred to the island that had been observed to be a frequented place by the mer, Hakyeon and Sanghyuk kept their distance, but having to live and work together on the island quickly brought them closer.

Hakyeon remembers the exact evening when they started to be more than just friends, but he suspects Sanghyuk had been in love with him for a lot longer. They were drinking wine that had come with a batch of new supplies from the mainland, after a long day out on the water, and perhaps it was the alcohol that made Sanghyuk muster up enough courage to voice his sincere feelings, slurring between the informality of English and the formality of Korean, an almost unintelligible combination that Hakyeon wouldn’t have understood if Sanghyuk hadn’t kissed him right after that.

The bed was far, but the couch was there, and though Hakyeon was tipsy that night, he can still remember the way Sanghyuk stumbled with his hands to unbutton Hakyeon’s shirt and undo his belt. They didn’t have sex that night, but after that, it didn’t take them long to start sleeping together, having to go as far as Sanghyuk letting one of his friends back on the mainland in on their secret so she could send them condoms and lube with the supply batches.

It’s been years— they lived and worked on the island for years, and Hakyeon didn’t know any other way of life.

Not until Taekwoon showed up.

 

Hakyeon sails for two days straight without sleeping before Taekwoon makes a U-turn and comes back to the stopped boat to check on Hakyeon, banging on the hull of the ship to wake Hakyeon up.

Hakyeon drags himself out of the cabin, grabs the railing and looks down, squinting as the water reflects the morning sun, almost sparkling.

“I’m exhausted,” he says, and Taekwoon whines at him exasperatedly, and hits the side of the ship with his fist again. If Taekwoon had feet, he would be stomping like a child, Hakyeon imagines. “I’m sorry, Taekwoon, I can’t go on until I sleep a little more— I don’t know how much sleep you mer need, but we have to rest a lot.”

Taekwoon blinks at him.

“Did you even understand anything?”

“No,” Taekwoon says and pushes himself away, making a small circle. He makes swimming look so— easy and natural. It’s as if he wasn’t even moving his body yet he sails, body cutting the water as if hot knife cutting into butter. The scales of his tail glow beautifully, in a colorful array that mesmerizes Hakyeon— he wants to run his hands down them.

“Soon I’ll have to fill the tank,” Hakyeon continues. Regardless of how much Taekwoon understands from what he’s saying, the mer will have to accept it. “I need to find land.”

“Land?” Taekwoon asks back, blinking up at him curiously. “I see land.”

“Where?” Hakyeon’s head whips around. Every direction he looks, he sees water.

“Land,” Taekwoon says, pointing towards a seemingly random direction. “And humans. Houses.”

“Show the way.”

By the time they arrive to the island – white beach, vibrant green palm trees, cerulean lagoon, but most importantly, a small town where Hakyeon can dock – the sun has begun its descent on the sky, though it’s still burning where Hakyeon’s skin is exposed.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Hakyeon says quietly as he crouches by the edge of the pier. Taekwoon looks up at him with a curious expression. “You stay here,” he motions with his hands. “Don’t come up above water. Don’t show yourself to anyone else, alright?”

Taekwoon blinks, making Hakyeon groan. He feels like talking to a kid that barely speaks his language.

Hakyeon has never been good with kids.

“Make sure no humans see you” he rephrases.

“No humans see me,” Taekwoon repeats.

 “When it’s bright, I’ll come back in the morning, and we leave, okay?”

“Okay,” Taekwoon nods, sinking slowly lower into the water. The membranes slid over his eyes automatically as his head dips below the surface. He blows a bubble.

Hakyeon shakes his head, smiles, and straightens out, but after he takes two steps towards the small building on the shore, he hears water splashing violently.

Taekwoon whines softly. “Where you go?”

“I won’t leave, don’t worry,” Hakyeon reassures him, smiling— it’s less genuine than the previous one, but it seems to calm Taekwoon down enough. “I just need to sleep in a proper bed. And food. Wait for me here in the morning.”

As he nears the shore he makes sure Taekwoon isn’t following him. At the small outpost he pays the docking fee with minimal English, and after making arrangements to have to boat filled up, the person – probably a native to the island – points him towards the town and the resort.

Once in the town, Hakyeon notices throngs of tourists, and he begins to worry about Taekwoon— with this many people, it’s a matter of time until some unsuspecting poor soul accidentally sights a person with fish tails swimming around. If it’s only a few people, it might be okay since not many will believe them, even if Taekwoon gets caught on camera, but Hakyeon’s employers might find their location before they could get away far enough from the island, and Hakyeon really doesn’t want to jeopardize his mission just because they weren’t careful enough.

For that same reason, he’s reluctant to hand over his ID when they ask for it at the reception of the hotel— he feels like he’s some kind of fugitive.

“I’m afraid we only have available single rooms in our bungalows on the shore, above the water. Those are somewhat more expensive,” the receptionist says kindly, typing away on her computer. The lobby of the hotel is bustling with tourists, and Hakyeon feels exposed. He already looks suspicious coming to the resort without any luggage but a backpack, nor does he exactly look someone who’s just passing through even though he had changed into a more casual wear before he set out.

“Alright, I’ll take it,” Hakyeon sighs. “Are there any that’s more isolated?” he might as well just go with the flow if he’s going to spend so much money on a single night.

“Yes, of course,” the woman nods, and hands him a plain looking card and a small map. “Here’s your key-card, and the location of your room. Enjoy your stay here.”

It takes Hakyeon a bit to find his bungalow, secluded behind a small cliff but still close enough to the town to hear some of the noise coming from there. It will keep Hakyeon from feeling completely alone, but not disturbed either— just perfect.

Before he settles down completely, he calls room service to have dinner delivered to his bungalow, and goes to the bathroom to take a much needed shower. He hasn’t bathed in two days, and the occasional spray of sea water doesn’t count as one at all.

He spends a long time in the shower stall, mind wandering again, mostly between Sanghyuk and Taekwoon. Sanghyuk, because Hakyeon misses him dearly, wondering what he might be doing at the moment— he has been already contacted by their employers already, he might have been interrogated as well, and the thought sends a tide of guilt across Hakyeon— he can’t expect Sanghyuk to lie for him indefinitely. It might be hard for Sanghyuk to deal with all this right now, but Hakyeon knows it would have been stupid to let Sanghyuk come along— one of them needed to stay behind and continue.

Hakyeon thinks about Taekwoon too— what the mer is doing right now, where he’s wandered off to, swimming with the fish or hunting for food, Hakyeon has no idea. He has a myriad of questions he wants answers to, but it’s not their priority— they need to get away from Hakyeon’s employers as far as they can, and Hakyeon needs to disappear off the face of Earth. Maybe after that, he can search for a quiet place close to the ocean where nobody will bother him, and he can continue his research with Taekwoon’s help, in the most humane way possible.

Maybe— maybe. Nothing is sure, nothing is set in stone— everything is up in the air, even Hakyeon’s survival. Why is he even planning so ahead?

He doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore.

He slides down the wall, the coldness of the tiles biting into his skin, and hugs his knees to his chest. He heaves, and tries to calm his breathing and racing heart without much success. He startles when a faint knock comes from the entrance, and a disembodied voice announces that his dinner is there. He takes a deep breath before weakly yelling for the staff member to leave the food at his door, and he waits for long minutes before he stands up to step out of the shower, holding onto the sink to keep himself upright.

He eats on the balcony, listening to the calm sounds of the gentle waves, the faint rustling of the leaves back on the shore, serene. The sun is just above the line on the horizon, the sky dressed in vibrant, warm colors, like a frozen explosion.

It’s like the calm before a destructive storm.

Water splashes signal Taekwoon’s arrival, and Hakyeon looks for the mer almost expectantly. True enough, the mer shows up around the small platform below the balcony that reaches into the water, and climbs onto it, letting out a whine.

Hakyeon, dressed in a fluffy bathrobe provided by the resort, sits down on the second to last step that’s still not wet, and dips his feet into the water.

Taekwoon twists his body to look at him, the heavy mass of his tail slipping off the platform a little bit.

“I was hoping you would show up, so I ordered some raw fish too,” Hakyeon says, lowering the plate he’s been holding to show Taekwoon the pile of sliced seafood. He picks up a slice of salmon and holds it out for Taekwoon. “We don’t know much about your diet.”

“Fish,” Taekwoon echoes. “Hungry.” He grabs Hakyeon’s wrist, and leans in to take the salmon Hakyeon is still holding, with his sharp teeth.

“Easy,” Hakyeon mumbles, pulling at his arm to prompt Taekwoon to release his wrist, but the mer doesn’t let go. He leans in again, and much to Hakyeon’s surprise, he touches his tongue to Hakyeon’s fingertips hesitantly before he licks around the whole of Hakyeon’s palms.

“Hungry,” he repeats, and dives for the plate with the sudden movements of a predator, almost knocking it out of Hakyeon’s hand. Some slices end up in the water that Hakyeon bends down to pick up, and holds up for Taekwoon when the mer has eaten everything from the plate.

“Ah-ah,” Hakyeon says, lifting a finger into the air— Taekwoon freezes, eyes fixed on the fish.

“Fish,” Taekwoon whines, jutting out his lower lip, oblivious to what kind of effect it has on Hakyeon.

Hakyeon swallows, and slowly lowers his arm. This time he doesn’t get startled when Taekwoon snatches his wrist forward to bite the last slice of fish from between Hakyeon’s fingers. After chewing around, the mer goes back to lick the remnants off Hakyeon’s skin, but before he can lean away, Hakyeon slips a hand behind Taekwoon’s neck.

Taekwoon lets out a surprised yelp, but doesn’t resist. He doesn’t pull away even as Hakyeon leans in very close.

There’s a tiny, dark spot right under one of Taekwoon’s eyes, as if it was a beauty mark. From this proximity, Hakyeon notices more of these marks all over Taekwoon’s torso, sharp contrast on his otherwise pale skin. His eyelids flutter, thin membranes following its movements as Taekwoon blinks rapidly. When Taekwoon tilts his head, out of the shadow the corner of the bungalow casts on them, the last rays of the sun catches in his eyes, reflecting back weak whiteness.

“You’re very beautiful,” Hakyeon blurts out before he can stop himself. Taekwoon mouths the word, purple lips moving in an attempt to imitate Hakyeon.

“B— beaut—i—ful,” Taekwoon tries, and Hakyeon nods enthusiastically.

“That’s right,” he smiles. “It means— it’s something you like looking at. Beautiful. Like you.”

Slowly, he releases Taekwoon’s neck, but his hand slides over to the other’s face for a brief moment before Hakyeon snatches his arm away as if burned. Taekwoon looks at his curiously, but doesn’t react otherwise. Instead, the mer flaps his tail fins in the shallow water, sending droplets into the air— in the dying orange glow of the setting sun, they look like pearls.

Hakyeon sets the plate away and stands up, hesitating for a moment before undoing the sash of his robe. He shrugs out of it, tossing the garment up the steps, and with Taekwoon’s curious glance following him, he walks into the water, shivering at its rather cold temperature, colder than what he expected it to be. Once he’s waist deep, he turns around to face the mer.

“Come, Taekwoon,” he says, extending an arm towards Taekwoon. “Show me how you swim.”

Taekwoon doesn’t think twice before he slips below the surface of the water, propelling himself forward with swift movements, barely any splashes. The next moment, he’s circling around Hakyeon, his image blurry as the water ripples. Hakyeon follows the mer with his gaze for a few turns, and then quickly dips himself into the ocean to get used to the temperature before kicking himself away from the sandy seafloor.

He’s not a very good swimmer, just skillful enough to keep himself afloat for some time – nor is his stamina something to marvel – but the way Taekwoon moves in the water, with such efficiency, none of the world’s best swimmers would be able to surpass him.

After Hakyeon ducks underwater to swim around, he hears Taekwoon humming faintly. Something swooshes past him, and when Hakyeon opens his eyes, Taekwoon is floating right in front of him, his dark irises barely visible behind the membranes, nares closed tightly. Hakyeon struggles to keep himself underwater until Taekwoon tentatively reaches out and touches his fingertips to Hakyeon’s chest, just above his ribs— when Hakyeon lifts his hand to take Taekwoon’s into his, Taekwoon slips his arm around Hakyeon under his armpit, holding onto his neck and keeping him below water.

Hakyeon feels his lungs start to burn— a bubble escapes from his nose, but he tries to keep all his oxygen inside, waiting for Taekwoon to do something, his stomach doing somersaults with anticipation.

What is Taekwoon planning?

Strangely enough, Hakyeon doesn’t feel embarrassed for being naked in front of Taekwoon— he doesn’t understand why, but it doesn’t bother him at all. It’s a fact that is not hard to ignore, not when Taekwoon pulls him even closer, all of Hakyeon’s focus on the mer and his proximity.

He wants to call out Taekwoon’s name, but he can’t do underwater, so he settles for wrapping an arm around Taekwoon’s shoulder to hold onto him more securely.

Taekwoon hums softly, though the action itself is not visible from the outside except for his chest deflating a little bit. He leans ever closer, and Hakyeon tries his best to ignore the need for oxygen because Taekwoon just presses his lips to Hakyeon’s, and licks his mouth with the flat of his tongue.

Confused, Hakyeon releases the remaining air from his lungs, bubbles obscuring Taekwoon’s face, and Hakyeon kicks himself upward urgently, he needs to breathe.

Taekwoon tightens his hold on Hakyeon, not letting go even as Hakyeon begins to thrash his body around, pushing at Taekwoon’s chest— a moment later, Taekwoon releases him, and as soon as Hakyeon resurfaces, he gasps for air, coughing.

Catching his breath, Hakyeon watches as Taekwoon slowly surfaces only up to his nares, and peeks up at Hakyeon from between his wet locks glinting silkily.

“We need air,” Hakyeon wheezes, inhaling deeply. His lungs rattle loudly as he breathes. Taekwoon just blinks at him, and then ducks down, swimming past him towards the bungalow. Done with swimming for the day – and probably for the rest of his life – Hakyeon follows the mer, albeit a lot slower.

When he gets to the small platform, he searches for Taekwoon, but can’t find him anywhere, even under the house.

“Taekwoon?” Hakyeon asks into the silence. No water splashes. “Taekwoon, I’m not angry,” he says. “I just— you just scared me a little bit.” When no response comes, Hakyeon sighs and reaches for his cold robe to wrap it around himself, and returns to the bungalow to take another, quick shower.

Exhausted, he falls face first onto the bed.

 

He dreams about swimming with Taekwoon, and instead of legs he has a long tail that he wraps around Taekwoon’s tail as they glide through the water, and maybe Sanghyuk is there too, in the background, with the dead mer alive and kicking, singing Taekwoon’s mer name until the melody turns into thuds.

Hakyeon wakes up to a strong hand wrapping around his mouth, and his wrists being bound by the metal of handcuffs biting into his skin. His eyes pop open, but a sharp light blinds him, and he can’t see anything in the darkness but two shapes.

“Radio the mainland that we wound the doctor,” a gruff voice says, Australian accent that Hakyeon knows by heart.

He tries to shout, but the hand presses down onto his face.

“Calm down, doc, we are not here to hurt you,” the soldier says as if it would reassure Hakyeon. “We’ll have to take you back.”

Hakyeon kicks the soldier straight in his crotch, and bits into his gloved hands, slipping off the bed as soon as the man releases him with a pained groan. He dashes towards the open entrance, and tackles the other soldier standing outside with a radio in his hand, just about to turn around at the sounds of struggle. The motion sensors pick up and the lamps along the pathway leading to the shore turn on automatically, showing the way to Hakyeon. However before he could run away, someone grabs him from behind and tosses him to the ground with a curse.

“Stay put!” the soldier hisses. Something cold presses into the back of his head, and terror washes over Hakyeon for a moment before he realizes who sent the men.

“You can’t shoot me,” Hakyeon grits out, turning his head to the side to glare at the man. He tries to wriggle away, but the other keeps him in place securely with his larger build.

“No, but I can break one of your fingers,” the man snickers, pressing down on one of Hakyeon’s fingers until his knuckles crack painfully. Hakyeon is about to cry out in pain but a hand muffles his scream.

In the next moment something falls into the water with a loud splash and a choked out cry from the other soldier, distracting the one on top of Hakyeon.

“What the fuck,” the man blurts out, looking towards the area where the water off the side is frothing, a hand and a feet kicking out. In the dim light of the small lamps, they can barely see as the white foam turns dark red.

The soldier takes the gun from Hakyeon’s nape and releases the whole magazine into the water, shots quietened by the muffler on the barrel. Taekwoon lets out an earsplitting cry as a bullet hits him.

“No!” Hakyeon yells and dives for the gun with his bound hands, knocking it out of the soldier’s grip, surprising the other man. The next moment, Taekwoon shoots out of the water, grabs the soldier’s legs and yanks him off the walkway, almost pulling Hakyeon along as well.

Hakyeon watches as the two bodies thrash around in the shallow water, the soldier trying to come up for air and wrestling Taekwoon at the same time, but after a few minutes, the man stops moving with a final jerk, and his body floats to the surface.

“Taekwoon,” Hakyeon says, holding onto the edge of the pier, searching the dark water desperately. Taekwoon comes up with a whine, one of his hands glued to his shoulder, blood gushing out between his fingers. “Oh no. Let me see.”

“Hurts,” Taekwoon cries quietly, showing his shoulder to Hakyeon as he rises out of the water as tall as he can.

“The bullet just grazed you,” Hakyeon says. “But I need to stitch it up. I have a first-aid kit on the boat.”

“Boat,” Taekwoon nods, his lower lip trembling.

“Meet me at the boat. I’ll be there as soon as I can— just— Taekwoon, give me— that.” Hakyeon points at the dead soldier’s belt, a ring of keys resting on one of the loops. Taekwoon looks at him when he grabs the keys, and after Hakyeon nods encouragingly, he tears it off with his healthy arm. “Now go. To the boat.”

Taekwoon hesitates before he swims off, and Hakyeon’s hands are shaking as he tries to stick the small key into the hole in his handcuffs. When he manages to get them off, he hurries back into the bungalow, grabs his bag, and doesn’t look back as he makes it for the shore.

It’s nearing dawn, so the town is empty, and nobody sees Hakyeon running down the pavement towards the docks, hoping that the dock master filled the ship’s tank like Hakyeon told him to.

When he gets to the boat, Taekwoon is already there, waiting for him at the rear of the ship, watching Hakyeon as he undoes the ropes hurriedly and jumps on the deck right next to Taekwoon.

“Come on up,” Hakyeon says, grabbing Taekwoon’s hands. “You can’t swim like this.”

“B-but water,” Taekwoon stutters but he helps Hakyeon pull him up onto the stern by flapping his tails powerfully, slapping at the water loudly. The boat sways, knocking into the side of the docks.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let you dry out,” Hakyeon reassures him. “Grab onto something, we have to go,” he says, guiding Taekwoon’s hand to a nearby handle, and dashes into the cabin to start up the engine. Remembering the general direction they neared the island from, Hakyeon steers the boat towards it, hoping that he’s not going in the complete opposite way.

Without Taekwoon showing the way – the mer tries to find his way, but he’s helpless outside the water – Hakyeon heads west as it was the direction Taekwoon was leading for most part of the two days.

After an hour or so, at daybreak, Hakyeon stops to check on Taekwoon with a bucket and the first-aid kit in his hands.

“Taekwoon,” Hakyeon whispers, gently pouring water over his body. “Wake up.” Taekwoon scrunches his face, shifting a bit. His blood has already dried between his fingers, but as soon as Hakyeon takes his hand off the injury, fresh blood rushes out.

He prepares the necessary tools to close the wound on Taekwoon’s shoulder.

“This will hurt. A lot.”

 

They sail for two more days with Taekwoon spending only a few minutes in the water to get the general direction, Hakyeon trying to waterproof his bandages by wrapping it in plastic. On the second day, Hakyeon eats raw fish that Taekwoon catches, tossing them onto the deck, and singing happily at Hakyeon’s mortified expression.

When Taekwoon tells him they are near, the water is shallow with an underwater island, small, sandy patches peeking out. Hakyeon anchors the boat some way off just before the ship could run aground.

“Where is it? The colorful garden?” Hakyeon asks.

“Down,” Taekwoon says. “Deep, down.”

“How deep is it?” Hakyeon continues, kneeling next to a large chest. He pulls out a wetsuit.

“Dark. Black.”

“That’s not good,” Hakyeon sighs. “It might be too deep for me.”

“I bury,” Taekwoon says, then hums the other mer’s name. “You go with me? Want?”

“Yes, I want to come with you,” Hakyeon nods, already undressing. He struggles a bit with the wetsuit, Taekwoon staring at him curiously, and then he prepares the diving gear. He’d learnt how to dive as per part of his research, and he also knows how to do it on his own, but he’s never really dived completely alone— if something goes wrong, he’s not sure how much he can count on Taekwoon to help him.

When Hakyeon pulls out the other mer’s frozen body from the freezer, Taekwoon lets out a sad wail, clawing at the flooring of the boat at the rear.

Hakyeon coughs, trying not to throw up when the stench hits his nose. It’s not a nice sight either, a body dead for five days, even if it was frozen for most of the time to keep it from decomposing.

“I’m sorry,” Hakyeon apologizes, but Taekwoon just looks at him for a moment before he pulls the other mer into the water, and waits for Hakyeon.

Hakyeon somehow manages to assemble the gear, all the tiny parts, though the buoyancy compensator is a pain in the ass, and he almost stumbles into the water as he sits onto the edge of the boat, the air tank pulling him backwards. He checks the air hose once more, the oxygen level – he’ll have around an hour to be underwater if he regulates his breathing – places the regulator inside his mouth and pulls down the mask before he pushes himself back.

It takes him a moment to get used to being underwater with all the equipment on his body, but his training and experience kicks in as he checks the diving gauge, and turns around to look for Taekwoon. He catches the mer’s shiny tail disappearing below a cliff, schools of fish swimming out of his way.

Hakyeon follows Taekwoon’s trail deeper, checking the levels of water pressure every so often until he has to turn on his headlamps to see Taekwoon, his scales reflecting the light with each stroke, as if it was flashing.

On the wall of the cliff, Taekwoon vanishes into a pitch-black underwater cave, mouth wide enough for Hakyeon and his equipment to swim in comfortably. Looking ahead, he can’t see Taekwoon anymore, but Hakyeon just follows the hallway— until it forks off into two separate way, one wider, the other narrower.

Hakyeon tries to hum inside his chest, loudly, calling for Taekwoon’s tone, but all he manages with it is wasting his oxygen. A flood of frothing bubbles obscure his view for a moment, but before he could continue towards the wider passage, he sees dirt rising from the narrow one, as if something has kicked it up— maybe it was Taekwoon.

A mer would fit inside, as well a human too, but Hakyeon doesn’t know how Taekwoon would have managed to cross it with another mer in his arms— nor would Hakyeon be able to bring along his breathing equipment.

A surge of warmer water comes from the narrow passage, the wider one stale, as if leading deeper into a cave system Hakyeon shouldn’t try to explore— he doesn’t have the time, the oxygen, nor the experience to do such thing.

He takes a deep breath— underwater, oxygen is almost the same as cigarette smoke, though healthy, it calms him down completely. He calls for Taekwoon again, to no avail, inhales deeply, exhales, and then begins to strip the regulator off his back.

The last thing to go is the hose that he keeps near his mouth, and takes gulps of air as he gets rid of the gear, only his wetsuit, his fins and mask with the headlamp remaining on him.

He takes a last breath, shuts off the air supply, and dives into the narrow passageway.

Darkness stretches before him, almost infinitely, and Hakyeon pushes himself forward without a thought, but soon, his lungs begin to feel uncomfortable, burning, just like when Taekwoon didn’t want to let him go underwater. Still, Hakyeon ignores it and puts all his strength into his legs— but the cavern just doesn’t want to end.

His kicks become desperate, and he has to resist the urge to just— _breathe_ in through his nose or mouth. The thought of water around him begins to ebb away, his brain fogging up from the lack of oxygen, until— something glints in the lamp’s beam, and Hakyeon claws his way towards it.

A small air bubble, barely enough for his head to fit, and Hakyeon breathes deeply, coughing. For a moment, he doesn’t think, filling his lungs, but then he screams, body shaking as the thought of drowning in an underwater cave fills his mind, like air his lungs. He wishes he could stay there or go back, but the passage is too narrow for him to turn around, and the air bubble is near unbreathable as Hakyeon exhales into it.

He breathes, and pushes forward— panic drives him now, and he feels the walls closing in on him from all sides, and he shouldn’t have come here, he shouldn’t have followed Taekwoon, because Taekwoon doesn’t care about him like Hakyeon cares about Taekwoon— he’s abandoned Hakyeon, to die alone, and hopeless, looking for help, like the mer that drowned in the petroleum, and Hakyeon wishes he was a mer with a powerful tail, gills between his ribs and webbing between his fingers, because— fuck, he _wants_ to _breathe_ so desperately.

Hakyeon has dived a lot of times, has spent half his life living next to water, caring for and researching marine life. He’d always go underwater to find solace when his life on land became too much to bear, when the expectations of his mother became too high, and her words stung worse than the slaps on Hakyeon’s cheeks. He would float in the water, embracing him from all sides, comforting him. He would resurface then, completely healed.

Now, the same water is choking him, killing him. He’d sacrificed his whole life to searching for solutions to the ocean’s problems, to saving it, and Hakyeon has always known that the ocean was merciless, it did not want anyone’s help— Hakyeon never wanted anything else from the ocean, but the peace it offered to him, and everyone else.

He would die like a mer—

—but something wraps around his hand and jerks him forward suddenly, and Hakyeon swallows water, unable to keep his mouth closed, and the cavern opens up before him, into a dark dome illuminated by only his lights, and echoing loudly.

“Breathe,” Taekwoon says, arms wrapped around Hakyeon’s middle, holding him out of the water securely as Hakyeon doubles over above his head and throws up water, coughing, wheezing, gasping for air. “Breathe.”

Hakyeon cries, choking, and hugs Taekwoon’s head to his chest tightly, his whole body shaking in fear. “Taekwoon—”

“You sing to me,” the mer mumbles, looking up at Hakyeon. “No Taekwoon. You sing my name.”

Hakyeon hums again, reverberating in his chest, and Taekwoon touches his forehead to Hakyeon’s sternum, feeling the vibrations.

Taekwoon sings along, and Hakyeon’s breathing begins to slow down. His heart still races from the adrenaline of being so close to dying, but with Taekwoon embracing him, Hakyeon feels safe.

The water around them calms down as they stay motionless, Hakyeon resting his head on top of Taekwoon’s until the mer lowers him into the water, eye level.

“I bury,” Taekwoon hums. “But— colorful garden. Show you. Want.”

“I can’t breathe—” Hakyeon starts, but Taekwoon cuts him off.

“Not far. I help you.”

 

The colorful garden is a sheltered coral reef of narrow rocky corridors with sandy floor and schools of fish swimming about lazily until Taekwoon and Hakyeon arrive. Taekwoon helps Hakyeon to the surface, but when he looks up, all he sees are walls of a roofless cave where the sun shines in brightly.

With Taekwoon at his side, though, Hakyeon is not afraid to go back the same way.

“This place,” Hakyeon says, looking around in awe. “It should not exist.”

“We come here, when we— die,” Taekwoon adds, and when Hakyeon ducks underwater to look around, he notices bones sticking out of the sand and between the corals as they grow around the remains.

It’s a mer graveyard, and Hakyeon has never seen a more beautiful place than this.

Taekwoon shows him where he laid the other mer to rest, on the bottom of one of the corridors, buried in the sand. With time, coral would grow around him too, and he would become part of this magical place, out of human’s reach.

When Hakyeon comes up above water to breathe again, Taekwoon suddenly lets out a strangled sound, prompting Hakyeon to turn around.

“H—” Taekwoon heaves through his mouth, and lifts a hand, fingers stained black— it’s leaking out of his nares, thick and sticky, oil.

 

Hakyeon doesn’t remember how he makes it out of the cave with Taekwoon, through a shorter, wider passageway, but the only thing he registers is the stinging pain of his hands being almost shredded to bits as he reaches down Taekwoon’s throat while the mer thrashes around on the boat, sinking his sharp fangs into Hakyeon’s wrist and choking at the same time. More oil escapes his nares, and— how did they not notice it before?

The boat sways in the gentle breeze, and the sun burns Hakyeon’s skin, but he doesn’t care about anything else— just Taekwoon, and the clog inside his throat that Hakyeon can’t reach properly, it’s located lower in Taekwoon than in the other mer.

Taekwoon grabs his wrist before Hakyeon could pull out his hand, and pushes it deeper into his own throat, gagging. The mer throws his body around, tail curling around and flapping.

“Just—a little more,” Hakyeon grits out, heart breaking at the sight of Taekwoon being in such agony, but then he dislocates the clog— Taekwoon’s teeth cut into his hand as he pulls it out, and Taekwoon spits out the solidified black thing that looks like a ball. Hakyeon turns the mer onto his side, and keeps a gentle hand on his shoulder as Taekwoon throws up more oil, curling in on himself as he vomits.

A spasm rocks through his body before he settles down, flopping onto his back.

“You’ll be okay,” Hakyeon promises, stroking Taekwoon’s face with his other hand.

Taekwoon opens his mouth, lips painted black, but an engine revs up, catching both of them off-guard. Hakyeon whips his head towards the sound, blood draining from his face as he sees a grey boat and a tall man standing on its front, rifle raised.

“It’s okay,” Hakyeon whispers, pulling Taekwoon closer.

Before the boat, along with the man, could get any closer, a dark shadow passes by Hakyeon’s ship at an insane speed, and then another, and before Hakyeon can even begin to fathom what it could be, a mer jumps out of the water, in a beautiful arch, like a dolphin, and pulls the soldier into the water. Another mer grabs the other soldier behind the wheels, pulling him underwater swiftly as well.

A third mer comes up to the surface just at the edge of the stern of Hakyeon’s boat, and grabs the platform as it rises out until its narrow waist. It keeps its distance, vary of Hakyeon’s presence.

Hakyeon stares the male mer in the eyes.

 

 


	2. Epilogue

 

 

When the seaplane touches water, Sanghyuk heaves into the paper bag Wonshik has given him, and lets the other man undo his belt. The pilot tells them something, but Sanghyuk can barely think through the cloud as he follows Wonshik automatically, climbing out of the plane onto the instable wooden ramp.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Wonshik asks hesitatingly, looking around the village. Most of the nearby villagers stare at them curiously, but they quickly go back to work as the plane’s rotors quieten down.

“These were the coordinates,” Sanghyuk says, reaching down into one of the pockets of his cargo pants, and pulls out a chain lace, with a dog-tag dangling off it. Below the information of the World War Two soldier, there is a series of numbers and letters scratched into its surface.

“Eh, I dunno,” Wonshik shrugs, following behind Sanghyuk with stumbling steps. “Doesn’t look like some kind of mer haven to me.”

“Good thing it doesn’t then,” Sanghyuk mumbles. He prepares a small photo before he steps up to one of the villagers. “Excuse me. Have you seen this man?” But the villager just looks at him as if he sprouted another head, and leaves them without a word.

“You didn’t think it would be this easy to find him, right?” Wonshik snickers, but lets out a yelp when Sanghyuk steps on his toes.

“Shut up and help me. He has to be on this island.”

“Are you Sanghyuk?” a man asks in broken English.

“Yes?” Sanghyuk turns around to look at the villager. He’s dressed a bit differently than the others, and wears a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. “Do you know me?”

“No, but I know that man— Hakyeon.”

“Do you know where he is?” Sanghyuk asks.

“He lives here. There’s an abandoned oceanarium inland. Sometimes I help him with repairs. I can take you there.”

It takes them a good twenty minutes of walk through the forest to get to the gates of the park, overgrown already, and Wonshik complains about the bugs and the humidity, and the small rock that got into his shoes. Sanghyuk ignores him – he’s learnt it the hard way – and waits for the man to open the lock on the rusty gates.

“You’re not coming?” Sanghyuk looks at the man curiously when the villager steps back to let them in.

“No— actually,” the man says, “Hakyeon told me to take you guys here. He should be waiting inside,” he motions towards the front entrance of the building. “Take this.”

Sanghyuk accepts the flashlight, and knocks Wonshik on the shoulder to get going.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Wonshik whispers, holding onto Sanghyuk’s arm.

“Stop whining,” Sanghyuk groans, but he slides his hand down to interlock his fingers with Wonshik’s until they walk up the steps. The door is closed, and they look at each other, listening intently. Apart from the wild sounds of the forest around the cleared off area of the park, they can’t hear anything else.

“Wait,” Wonshik blurts out when Sanghyuk is just about to place his hand on the knob, startling Sanghyuk.

“For fuck’s sake—”

“I should go in first,” Wonshik says, taking the flashlight from Sanghyuk’s grip and turning it on immediately.

“Uh, why?”

“Because I’m older than you, so— I— should be the one protecting you…?” Wonshik answers, which is also a half-question, but only earns a gentle slap on the back of his head from Sanghyuk. “Ouch!”

Sanghyuk opens the door, which gives in with a loud creak, and steps in.

The lobby is well-illuminated through a glass dome on the ceiling, though it’s slightly mossy and overgrown, they don’t need the flashlight to show them the way. There’s a fountain in the middle, and some debris, the floor, probably marble, dirty, but it doesn’t look to have been abandoned a very long time ago. Most of the furniture has been repurposed by the villagers, but the place looks— clean, compared to it, well maintained.

Almost as if someone lived there.

On the very far side of the lobby, there’s a humongous wall with a large glass built into it, and crystal clear water casts moving white shapes of light on the floor as the sunshine penetrates through the water.

They walk up to the observing glass, Wonshik plastering his palms onto its surface and peeking into the seemingly endless pool behind it.

“Can’t see anything,” Wonshik pouts, turning around.

“I’m sure there’s more to this place,” Sanghyuk muses as they examine the lobby from the other side, looking for hallways and doors. A blurry shadow passes by them on the floor, but by the time they both whip their heads around, the water is empty, no sign of any creatures in the pool.

“Tell me I didn’t hallucinate it,” Wonshik whispers, voice trembling.

They explore the complex together, deciding against going separate ways to comb through the park faster. They only have one flashlight anyway, and Wonshik is afraid of the dark.

“What are we going to say to the others if we find him?” Wonshik asks quietly as they walk along a dark hallway, rectangular shaped glasses on the wall lit up with different colors, windows to empty aquariums that were once filled with different species of fish and other sea creatures. “They surely know by now.”

Sanghyuk hesitates before answering, a question that he’s thought of a lot ever since the mysterious letter.

He’d moved back to Sydney some time after Hakyeon went missing, unable to continue his work alone on the island, trying to live in the house that they shared— too many memories. His employers were more than happy to give him everything he wanted now that they were down one of their most prized researchers, and perhaps, they were afraid to lose Sanghyuk too.

Sanghyuk searched, high and low, for Hakyeon, using all his connections, but as the years went by with all his leads going cold, he buried himself in his work. Along the way he’d met Wonshik, a freediver, who accidentally sighted a group of mer during one of his dives, and Sanghyuk was one of those to question Wonshik about the encounter.

He didn’t fall in love with Wonshik like he fell for Hakyeon, it wasn’t a sudden spark that burned passionately, but a constant ember that warmed Sanghyuk when he felt cold and alone in his empty apartment.

It’s been long years since then, and Sanghyuk has gotten over it— he’s gotten over Hakyeon.

But when he found the letter on his desk, with a familiar necklace as its only content, he jumped on the opportunity, and dragged Wonshik along, because there was no one else he trusted as much.

“Nothing,” Sanghyuk says, clutching the dog-tag in his fist. “We tell them we found nothing. We tell them it was just a fluke.”

“Do you think they will believe it?” Wonshik asks softly, squeezing Sanghyuk’s hand.

“They will have to.”

They find a large room that looks to have been a mere observatory, but was transformed into a living area, though rather dark. There’s a kitchen in one of the corners, and a living room with only the barest necessities a few steps lower in the middle. One of the walls jutting out is a curving glass, and only the barely audible sounds of water lapping at the top of the glass wall can be heard, along with the slight buzzing of the fridge. There’s a small metal ladder off to the side, leading up to the top of the wall, behind the glass, and a small ledge as well.

Sanghyuk walks up to a desk and flicks on the lamp. He hears Wonshik’s careful steps on the carpet as he wanders off. There are a few sheets of documents lying on the desk, handwritten in scratchy English that Sanghyuk can barely read. One is titled _‘territorial behavior of the Mediterranean mer’_.

They’ve never been able to observe the mer in the Mediterranean, as they are the most elusive ones— such close proximity to humans made those mer experienced at how to avoid everyone.

Sanghyuk looks through the other pages, all of them behavioral studies, and then he notices something in the corner of his eyes. He steps to the bookcase— children’s books and intermediate language books mostly, but there are some maritime encyclopedias and heavy studies as well that Sanghyuk only knows by the name.

He takes the familiar ring between his fingers, and suddenly, the memories of the day when he gifted the same ring to Hakyeon come flooding back to his mind.

He almost drops the ring when Wonshik yells, tumbling to the floor with a dull thud.

“What is—” Sanghyuk starts, but the word gets stuck mid-way when his eyes fall on the humanoid shape behind the glass, floating in the water.

He blinks at the mer, recognition washing over his features.

“Taekwoon,” Sanghyuk whispers, stepping closer.

The mer, not even a day older to how he looked when Hakyeon found him on the beach nine years ago, smiles, and places his hand on the glass. Wonshik stares at them from the floor, watching the exchange with his mouth agape.

“Oh my god, Taekwoon,” Sanghyuk breathes, and some kind of relief takes control of his whole body, a heavy weight lifting off his heart. Tears prickle at his eyes as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Taekwoon swims up to the top, and leans over the ledge, crossing his arms. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Sanghyuk laughs, rubbing at his wet eyes. “Long time no see.”

“You turned— grew old,” Taekwoon says, still smiling. Wonshik bursts out laughing until it ends up in a yelp when Sanghyuk kicks his leg. He’s about to say something to Taekwoon, but another mer swims up to them, a male with short black hair and waist a lot narrower than Taekwoon.

The other mer stays underwater, observing them almost shyly. Taekwoon wriggles his fingers at him, and he tentatively surfaces.

“He’s Hongbin— he and the others saved us when— it’s long,” Taekwoon says. “Hakyeon will be better at telling you the story.” Sanghyuk waves at Hongbin, who mirrors his actions before he swims away quickly.

“Where is he?” Sanghyuk swallows, suddenly not sure if he’s ready to face Hakyeon— he’s scared for some reason, and he doesn’t understand why.

“Outside. He’s been repairing some valves so we can use the canal between the outside pool and the ocean.”

“Ah,” Sanghyuk says. He helps Wonshik off the floor, the necklace slipping out of his grip, clinking softly. He picks it up and shows it to Taekwoon.

“I don’t need it anymore,” Taekwoon shakes his head. He follows Sanghyuk with his gaze as he places the dog-tag on the side of a nearby surface where it’s visible.

“I have something else for you, though,” Sanghyuk says, stepping onto the ladder to climb up. He pulls himself up to the small platform, Taekwoon already waiting for him in the water. Sanghyuk crouches down in front of him, and pats along his pockets. “Here.”

He takes Taekwoon’s hand, turns it palm upwards, and places a small shell in it.

Taekwoon lets out a soft gasp.

“The other mer we found that day— he’d been holding onto this.”

The shell has the same pattern carved into its inside as the swirling pattern on Taekwoon’s tail— the same as the one on the dog-tag, a lot less detailed.

Taekwoon whines and presses the shell to his chest.

“Thank you.”

Sanghyuk is about to stand up, but he accidentally slips and falls into the water behind Taekwoon, flailing. Faintly he hears Wonshik’s yells, but everything calms down once Taekwoon takes hold of Sanghyuk’s hand and pulls him up to the glass.

He’s okay, he’s had time to breathe— Sanghyuk was just caught off guard.

Taekwoon smiles at him and looks beyond the glass.

Sanghyuk follows his gaze, and slowly, the blurry image of a new shape takes form beside Wonshik—

He sees a face that Sanghyuk had spent so much time searching for, dreaming about, crying over— a face he never thought he would see again— a face of the man who changed his life.

He places his hand on the glass, where another palm rests already, and there Hakyeon is, standing in his full glory, older, with crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes, and a whisper of white hair at his temples, with eyes looking at Sanghyuk that had seen both life and death, but still so much like the Hakyeon Sanghyuk has known and loved once upon a time.

They are there, with the ocean inside of them connecting them together.


End file.
